Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Koigu amuses me to no end. I love the color changes and watching it knit up. It's been keeping me up way beyond my self-imposed bedtime this week. After every row, I stop knitting to admire the Koigu color changes. Hubs seemed to be less than thrilled when I tried to get him to admire the colors while he was mid video gaming session. :)

Koigu Clappy, ahhhhhhh :)

The Clapotis pattern is a really fun, easy knit so far. I have 5 of 7 increase repeats completed. I think this will be the first of many Clapotis that I'll knit.

Monday, May 29, 2006

As of 2AM this morning, the Prairie Blanket is DONE! *insert thud of me hitting the floor unconscious here*

Completed Prairie Blanet

Final StatsFinished Size: 39 inches by 39 inchesNeedles: Addi Turbos sz US 8, 40 inchesYarn: Caron Simply Soft in off whiteDuration: April 14th to May 29th with some play for Mother's Day knitting thrown in. Lots of Firefly, CSI, Lost, and Doctor Who episodes went into this project, too.

Overall, this pattern got a little tedious, particularly around the miles and miles of garter stitch in the middle at the blanket's largest point. Hence, any of the wrong leaning decreases along the edging are considered a design feature. I didn't have the heart nor stamina to tink (un-knit) hundreds of stitches to fix one. Hey, it's a baby blanket; gourd knows what kind of stuff will wind up on it in the end. :) I loved the short row corner turns at the halfway point, very clever and entertaining part to knit. Much rejoicing was heard in our house last night when the right amount of stitches were on the needles after all the decreases for the middle. However, the whole blasted thing was almost thrown out the window a few minutes later after some rather fuzzy ending instructions. Or maybe that was just my level of exhaustion. The last 14 stitches took me around 45 minutes to finish properly. My hands felt dead by the end of it all; they got a nice warm soak after all that work. :) Word from the now wise, if you want to knit this pattern, use at LEAST a 40 inch circular needle. Any smaller size and the middle portion would have been uncomfortably crammed on the needles.

Close up of my favorite part, the short row corners.

No rest for the wicked, or the knitter. I cast on today for a Clapotis for me. Yummy colored Koigu on Crystal Palace bamboo US 4 needles. The Koigu is no where near the size (nor expense!!) of the recommended Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb. It's intented to be a small lightweight wrap for me to toss over my shoulders this summer when the office air conditioning gets a bit too nippy for me.

Monday, May 22, 2006

I can only think that my love of fiber has rubbed off onto Bandit. Inspired by my work on the Prairie Blanket, Bandit picked up the only other unattended off white fiber in the house, one of our remaining two placemats (he's all ready eaten holes in two others).

Supporting my little guy, here's his first finished object...

Ummm..guess this should be titled "Canine Object d'Art #789324" while it's "blocking" in slobbers

Why, I do believe it’s visible evidence of progress on the Prairie Blanket!

Evidence of knitting besides butt-shaped dents on the couch

I have about 19 by 19 inch triangle of knitting left on the blanket - 180.5 square inches of knitting. Most of the day Sunday was spent with me knitting on the Prairie Blanket and watching about 10 hours of Da Vinci Code schlock on the History Channel. That’s probably more time than I’ve ever spent watching the History Channel total!

Friday, I did some yarn stash enhancing by going to Stitches n Scones after a trip to the spa. An hour long massage was just the ticket I needed to loosen my grip on my purse strings and buy some yarn. My intentions were to go in and buy two additional skeins of Koigu and a pair of size 4 circular needles for a Clapotis.

In addition to the Koigu and new Crystal Palace bamboo circs, I also got:

Cascade 220 in a bubblegum pink

Opal Sock Yarn in Tiger- grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

I’m buying up Cascade 220 for Fuzzy Feet like it’s going out of style. Love the yarn, love the pattern, and see myself making several pairs. The Opal yarn was from a new shipment and after hearing that the Rain Forest line is special edition, I had to buy two skeins. I’m such a sucker when I hear the phrase “limited edition”; it calls to my inner collector. I really hope that the Owl yarn I ordered about a month ago is still in stock at the manufacturer’s.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Long time, no post. Sorry about that. Between personal life crapola going on (see my personal blog for details) and covert Mother's Day knitting, I haven't been able to share too much.

Eight days before Mother's Day, I finally got inspiration for gifts. Of all places, inspiration struck while I was driving on the interstate, blabbing to my grandmother on my cell phone. (I know, bad Christina, bad Christina for jawing on my phone while driving.) I decided to knit Mason-Dixon Washcloths for Mother's Day gifts. Within minutes of that decision, I had bought a pound of Peaches & Creme cotton yarn. The next morning, I cast on my first dishcloth. By Monday night, here was my progress.

I did get five washcloths knitted for mailing and gifting by Mother's Day weekend and have PLENTY of yarn leftover for some more cute little projects from Mason-Dixon Knitting. The pattern was very easy to learn, even the tricky eyelet round and bobbles. Also, it gave me the chance for more practice on my SSK stitches. Only complaint from me is that cotton isn't my hands' friend. By the end of a full on knitting weekend, my hands were pretty strained and didn't want to open from a claw-like position.

Since Mother's Day knitting is finished, I picked up the Prairie Blanket project again. My hands are pleased to be working with the ginormous Addi-Turbos again. I've made some progress. No, really, I swear it's gotten bigger and the attached skein is smaller...

Blanket Progress

I must be coming down with knitter's ADD. Another project is brewing in my mind, scarily enough. The AC at work is set at freezy or peep-sicle, and I can't help but think a nice Clapotis from Koigu would be just the ticket I need. Yarn store trip for two more skeins of Koigu and some US5's may be in order. :)

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

What a weekend! I'm shocked that my hands are able to lie flat. The majority of my weekend was spent knitting, no big surprise there :) Friday morning, I wasn't able to leisurely sleep in as I hoped. Bandit was on the early morning warpath. Apparently, my leftover Lorna's Lace sock yarn from my Olympic socks (almost a full skien!!) was in his warpath, too. Imagine my horror waking up to my beautiful sock yarn being strewn all about the living room, kitchen, and front entryway. *sigh* I spent four hours Friday afternoon and Saturday morning unknotting and winding the tangled mass of yarn that Bandit made. Most of it was salvaged though - whew!

The Fuzzy Feet still need to be felted and have slipper bottoms sewn on. Sewing is not my friend, but this pattern sure was! I'd highly recommend the Fuzzy Feet pattern for first time sock knitters or for knitter's who want to improve their decreases. I realized on my first Fuzzy Foot that my SSK's were pretty fugly and took this pattern as an opportunity to try to improve my techniques.

Friday night, I had a fit of inspiration or perhaps a touch of madness. After pondering for a few weeks, I finally figured out what to do for Mother's Day gifts. True to my nature, it involves a lot of knitting. With next weekend's deadline looming, I started knitting gifts over the weekend. Many hours of knitting with cotton yarn left my hands pretty tired.

New projects with a narrow deadline require a trip to the local yarn store, right? Saturday after undoing Bandit's yarn mess, I ran to Stitches N Scones in Westfield to pick up some new needles. By chance, some Opal sock yarn in the Fish colorway just hopped into my hands and made me buy it :) Yeah, and the Opal Tiger and Owl sock yarn ordered itself for me, too.

Really, how could I not buy yarn named Fish??

Sunday, I joined a new knit along group, the Mason-Dixon Knit Along. The premise is a group of knitters blogging about projects we've made from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book. I've been very inspired by the designs in that book - log cabin knitting, knitting for the house, and unusual knitting mediums. Any recipients of Mother's Day gifts from me, please refrain from going to that site until after Mother's Day; no peeking at gifts allowed! :D

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Finished up my first fuzzy foot slipper a few moments ago. I took a few liberties with the pattern as I knitted it on DPNs instead of circulars. For the gusset and toe decreases, I followed the basic decreases given in Sensational Knitted Socks. Nice quick and easy knit to get my mind off the epic baby blanket and Hub socks. Tomorrow evening, I'll cast on the second fuzzy foot. I won't be felting them until I gift them so they can be felted down to the right fit. :)

Monday, May 01, 2006

Over the weekend, I opened up some sort of blackhole in the universe. Sorry if all your yarn is suddenly sucked towards Indiana into this insatiable phenomenon. A better description is an off-white hole really known as the Prairie Blanket.

Progress as of April 30th

This weekend I binged on the Firefly Series and Serenity DVDs while knitting on the Prairie Blanket. That's over 13 hours, and not a whole heck of a lot of progress sizewise. I realized I had to set it aside for a few days when I was hazily making errors and passing on fixing them because that would require ripping out eight bajillion stitches. Close approximation, really :) I definitely need work on my fixing flub-ups skill. I am on the decrease section now, yeah!

Instead of pulling out the Hub socks of doom, tonight I started a set of Fuzzy Feet in cheery pink! Since I dislike teeny tiny circular needles, I'm working them on DPNs.

Ahhh...44 stitches on big honking needles :)

After watching so much Firefly this weekend, I have a notion to add an item to my "To Knit" list.

I suddenly "need" a Jayne Cobb hat before GenCon (a big gaming convention in Indy) in August

Yeah, don't ask me why I want a bulky wool hat for an event in the middle of steamy hot August. It can be quite nippy in that convention center, you know? :)